READING FOR SEPTEMBER 12, 2024: LEVITICUS 27, ACTS 4, PSALM 95                           LEVITICUS 27 Because this chapter, like all of Leviticus, deals with practices so unlike our experience, it is difficult to understand with a quick reading. Perhaps a good way to approach it is by using a story that’s more familiar to Bible readers: Hannah and Samuel. Hannah was discouraged that she couldn’t have children. 1 Samuel 1:1 picks up the story:  “She made a vow and said, ‘Lord of armies, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your bond-servant and remember me, and not forget Your bond-servant, but will give Your bond-servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life.”’ We know Samuel was then born to Hannah who fulfilled her vow by bringing Samuel to the Temple for service when he was three. Now according to values from Leviticus 27 (see below), Samuel would be assessed as worth five shekels at that moment. 

If the person making a vow is too poor to afford these amounts, the priest can adjust the value downward based upon ability to pay. 

Other Vows, Assessments, and Tithes:

• An animal that would otherwise qualify as fit to sacrifice could be given as a vow and be redeemed back by giving another animal fit for sacrifice. If an unfit animal is given, the priest will assess its value. If the original owner wishes to redeem that animal, he would pay the assessed value plus 20%. 
• If a person wished to consecrate his house but then wanted to redeem it, the person would pay the assessed value plus 20%.
• If a person wished to consecrate part or all of a field but then wanted to redeem it, the person would pay the assessed value as adjusted by the number of years until the next year of jubilee. 
• A first-born clean animal cannot be given in a vow, since it is already to be given as an offering. An unclean first-born animal can be given and then redeemed for its assessed value plus 20%. 
• A person cannot vow to give something to the Lord that he was planning to destroy anyway. 
• A person giving a tithe (10%) of his land, seed, or fruit to the Lord can redeem for full value plus 20%. 
• A person giving a tithe of his herd or flock to the Lord cannot redeem it.                      

How does this have anything to do with us? If we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have been redeemed or bought from sin to become the eternal possession of God. The assessed value for us was infinitely high, the blood of God’s Son. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). 

ACTS 4  Peter and John were arrested for preaching the doctrine of the resurrection. Here is a report from this week’s YMC’s update “In March, three Montagnard [Viet Nam] members of an independent house church in the Dak Lak province were detained for a week—without any explanation or warrants. Villagers in the same province also found the body of Montagnard preacher Y Bum Bya hanging in

READING FOR SEPTEMBER 12, 2024 CONTINUED: ACTS 4, PSALM 95                                           the local cemetery. His church members believe the preacher was murdered after being repeatedly beaten and threatened by local police.”   Black scholar George Yancey wrote, “One of the money lines in a New York Times editorial I was interviewed for recently was that I have faced more discrimination as a Christian than as a black in academia.”  Those who work in higher education know this is true. Let’s see how John and Peter handle their opposition, having recently seen Jesus executed for the truth. 

It looks like they were hauled in front of the same cast of accusers who questioned Jesus during His trial. In fact, these accusers asked them a similar question to what they asked Jesus after He cleansed the Temple: “By what power, or in what name, have you done this?”  At this point, we see a fulfillment of one of Jesus’s promises. They were filled with the Holy Spirit while they were on trial for preaching the truth. Doesn’t this get us excited? First, Peter pointed out how absurd it was to be on trial for healing a disabled man. Then they seized the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, finishing with that epic statement: “There is no other name [than Jesus] under heaven that has been given among mankind by which we must be saved.” The Council told them not to preach about Jesus again but let them go because the people could see the truth. Peter and John responded with a vital principle: They must obey God rather than man. This is true for our us, as well as for our fellow believers in Viet Nam and in academia. 

As they left the Council, they returned to their Christian community for a prayer and praise meeting. This might be a good idea for us whenever we can celebrate God’s victories. Even though they were baptized in the Spirit before at Pentecost, it says they were filled with the Spirit at this meeting. (Looks like there can be multiple fillings.)  A concrete result of this fillingis that they spoke “the word of God with boldness.” That’s what we need. They even sold their personal possessions to distribute to those in their fellowship who had need. Radical. PSALM 95 This Psalm gives us two choices. Maybe there are only two choices in life. For the first seven verses the Psalmist says let’s all sing with thanksgiving and joy accompanied by instruments. The reason? God is great. With all love to friends with other beliefs systems, the God of the Bible is greater than any other god or belief or non-belief system. He is the creator of the natural world and of us human beings. To bow down to Him alone is our first choice. The second choice is to harden our hearts to God and His revelation to us. This is the choice that many Israelites took in the wilderness. As a result, they did not enter the promised land, although the next generation did. The final phrases tell what happened to them as a warning to the readers, especially us: “And they do not know My ways. Therefore, I swore in My anger, they certainly shall not enter My rest.”   Hebrews tell us what to do:“Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God” (Heb. 3:12).